alt Hacker News> Because the experience of interacting with AI is miserable. I like writing code.
I'm your exact opposite.
I've felt like code is 1960's punch card tech my entire career. I've always wanted to do more.
So much of coding is plumbing. Or paying attention to tiny little details. Or hunting down stupid bugs. Or changing requirements and refactoring. That shit sucks. All of it.
I've never had so much fun with software. It's starting to feel like magic. And because we possess deep understanding, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this.
The AST is not the objective. The finished product is. Our DNA is by all accounts filled with garbage. Let your feelings about code purity and sanctity go. It's the job to be done that matters.
Code is not holy. In 100 years people will look at our ephemeral artifacts as silly little things. Treat it that way today. Means to an end.
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>Or paying attention to tiny little details
That's like, the entire point and the entire reason any of it works with any sense of reliability. Did they not do the "tell me how to make a sandwich" gag to show why thinking about the details matters? Ignoring them is how you end up with borderline unusable applications slower than they were with 10 fewer years of hardware development. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
> So much of coding is plumbing. Or paying attention to tiny little details. Or hunting down stupid bugs. Or changing requirements and refactoring. That shit sucks. All of it.
No offense, but this sounds like you just don't like anything about writing code and you don't have any LLM superpowers, because those are the technical skills that make you good at being a software engineer regardless of whether you're using an agent.
> Code is not holy. In 100 years people will look at our ephemeral artifacts as silly little things. Treat it that way today. Means to an end.
I don't give a shit about code as an artifact. Writing code to solve problems is fun. Prompting an AI to solve problems makes me want to eat a gun. That's a real difference and it's not something I can just change about myself.
I mean, if you don’t like refactoring, which is my absolute favorite, it’s hard to believe you understand software engineering and software architecture.
Tedium absolutely exists in coding. And is usually a sign of bad interfaces and/or architecture.
For most of us it wasn’t really about getting the user to do X. It’s getting the user to do X at 1/10th of the price, 10x the speed, and the user is left absolutely amazed.
Magic is for the user to experience. Not for the user of the programming language.
"the sand doesn't matter, only the beach does"? Makes no sense.
Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away.
> In 100 years people will look at our ephemeral artifacts as silly little things
Whereas they'll totally admire the hamster wheels in which people shoveled product? Well, I don't care either way. Craftsmanship and care have their own rewards, and shape the person engaging in them for the better.